Service conditions to get better for bank staff; coming, leave policy

Bank employees, especially from the public sector, are likely to see service conditions improve substantially.

A host of service condition improvements are being considered by managements, including a “Leave Bank” system, privilege leave four times a year (against three times now), six months maternity leave for adoption of child (two months now), and paternity leave. This is in addition to getting a 15 per cent hike in salary under the industry-wide wage settlement agreement signed recently.

Under the ‘Leave Bank’ system, employees can voluntarily donate a part of their entitled leave to a common pool. The “Leave Bank” will sanction leave with salary to employees who are compelled to be on prolonged leave due to treatment of major diseases or accidents and other contingencies beyond their control and where such employees have exhausted all their leave.

Management approval

If the proposed improvement in service conditions are approved by bank managements under the aegis of the Indian Banks’ Association, then to avail privilege leave (PL), 15 days notice would be sufficient (against 30 days now). PL could be accumulated up to 270 days against the existing ceiling of 240 days.

Extraordinary leave for male employees (without pay) could be sanctioned up to a maximum of 720 days during the entire service as against the existing ceiling of 12 months. Employees could be granted special sick leave with salary for a maximum period of 30 days while on hospitalisation for donation of kidney or any other organ.

Maternity leave facility will be available to a biological mother in cases where the child is born through surrogacy. Employees can also get special leave for sports activities, trekking and mountaineering, among others.

Additional holidays

Under a deal cobbled together by bank trade unions and bank managements on February 23, employees, mostly from the public sector, will get a 15 per cent wage hike and two additional holidays a month as part of an industry-wide wage settlement.

The proposed hike will amount to a collective outgo of ₹4,725 crore a year for the 45 banks that are part of the 10th industry-wide bipartite five-year wage (2012-17) settlement exercise. Almost 8.50 lakh employees – all in public sector banks, some old generation private sector banks and a few foreign banks – are expected to benefit from the wage settlement. The revised salary will be implemented with retrospective effect from November 1, 2012.